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The Great Duckling Relocation - July 11, 2006

I was sitting at my desk earlier today when Christi sent me an instant message asking if I had my camera, because Forrest and Patty had seen a mother duck and her ducklings walking across a grassy area near the building. I had my little camera with me so I grabbed it and headed out. It took me a bit to find them as they'd moved out of the grassy area and were heading across a parking lot toward the 520 freeway.

I caught up with them and realized I couldn't just take pictures of them, because if they continued the way they were going they'd surely get run over.

First I herded them back to a little park area near our building, and they ate some grass and played in a little puddle that the sprinklers had made, but every time I went to walk away, they started heading back to the parking lot and the freeway.

I called corporate security, who said they couldn't do anything but call the humane society, so I called the humane society who said it was not their area, but I should call animal control. I called animal control and they said it didn't fall in their area, but I should call fish and wildlife. I called fish and wildlife and they said that ducks find odd places to have their babies and there wasn't anything they could do to help. So I called corporate security again to ask if maybe they could provide some creative support. No luck, but they gave me the number of a place called critter rescue. I thought I had it made, but surprisingly enough critter rescue would not rescue my critters. They gave me the number of PAWS, and considering how much I donate to them every year I figured this would do the trick. Unfortunately PAWS would only help if the animals were injured, and I could hardly justify injuring one of the ducks just to get help.

My first thought was to get someone to take my job of periodically herding them back toward the center of the park, while I ran to a local hardware store and bought a bunch of small gauge chicken wire to build an enclosure for them to live in until they were big enough. A few seconds later I realized that was silly (most people would have known that immediately), but maybe I could catch them in a box and take them to lake Marymoor park (my preferred animal relocation area, just ask the rats and mice in the briar patch).

Now that I had a plan, I used my phone to send text messages to Christi in her meeting to round me up some help. A few minutes later Christi, Nate, and Forrest showed up, then Lenny and Ryan with two cardboard boxes and some foamcore posters to use as herding devices (we figured touching the ducklings might cause the mother to abandon them). Another employee named Cassie chipped in and helped out as well.

My idea of herding the whole group into a cardboard box (even with the end cleverly opened to work like a amphibious landing boat) soon proved to be impossible as the mother duck would stick with them right up until the time we got close enough to get her in the box. Luckily a guy walked up to us who said he'd done this before and it is only necessary to get the ducklings in a box and then the mom would follow anywhere you walked. He also had the critical information that there was a nice pond in an apartment complex just up the road. I don't know what the guy's name was, but he ran up ahead and scouted out the pond and then came back and met us part way to guide us in.

Here are some pictures of the ducklings and our "Great Duckling Relocation" project.